METH REPORT WILL JUST COLLECT DUST

Excuse me if I'm not terribly excited about the just-released
findings of the premier's task force on crystal meth.

The task force, co-chaired by Colleen Klein and Bob Westbury, trotted
out 83 recommendations to tackling the growing problem of
methamphetamine addiction. It's estimated the shopping list of ways
to hopefully lick that problem would cost at least $30 million.

It's hard to imagine anyone would subject themselves to habitually
use the odious drug that can contain everything from paint thinner to
drain cleaner to gasoline to propane. (How long do you think it would
take to get permanent brain damage from those kind of ingredients?)

But people flock to the cheap, easily available, highly addictive
drug - especially, according to research, kids aged 10 to 25.

A lot of the task force recommendations make sense, while others
dealing with enforcement are controversial.

The point is, though, we've all seen high-profile reports tossed on
shelves to collect dust - and I suspect this one may suffer the same fate.

A couple of the most famous federal government Royal commissions
immediately come to mind.

One was the controversial 1981 Kent Commission on newspapers that
cried out about increasingly large media company conglomerates. The
recommendations from that report went nowhere.

The LeDain commission in 1970 recommended nobody should get a
criminal record for possessing a bit of marijuana. It took the last
Liberal government about 35 years to resurrect the decriminalization
notion before the current federal Tory government put a stake in the
heart of that idea.

More recently the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada
hasn't resulted in any major fixes on that front, either.

It's said that timing is everything. If so, this meth task force
report couldn't have come at a worse time.

With the retirement of Ralph Klein from the premier's job, the entire
government is focused on the race to replace him.

And to be brutally honest, it's fairly apparent that co-chair Colleen
Klein's name doesn't have quite enough clout to get many (or any) of
the recommendations adopted.

She was upbeat and saying all the right things when the report was
released this past week. "With the help of community leaders across
the province, the task force's recommendations will stop the abuse
and negative impacts of crystal meth on our communities, workplaces,
families and young people," she said. "We can and must work
collectively to fight against the damage of this drug."

It would be a shame if few or none of the recommendations were
adopted, because some make a whole lot of sense, especially if we
want to see the end of this scourge in society. There's a call to
"create a fund that pools resources for the development of programs
to reduce and eliminate the use and abuse of crystal meth."

There's an excellent idea to see schools provincewide "enhance the
delivery of the drug-education component of the career and life
management program by including guest speakers who are experienced
with meth and other drugs such as former users (and) other youth ..."

That's a no-brainer and might well be the best way to get through to
kids that meth isn't a harmless, happy buzz but rather a drug that
can devastate their lives.

The report calls on AADAC to "use Internet sites that are popular
with youth and young adults to share drug information and provide
prevention messages." Again, that's just good, common sense.

Some of the get-tough measures on enforcement could work too,
including calling on Alberta's solicitor general to "establish drug
undercover street teams in seven regions in the province to address
the impact of methamphetamine and drugs in urban, rural and
aboriginal communities."

Other recommendations that probably wouldn't fly including calling
for a crackdown on stores that sell paraphernalia like pipes and
bongs. That wouldn't accomplish much since druggies are truly
inventive and can just as easily smoke the stuff from an altered light bulb.

Arguably the most controversial recommendation calls for a major
change to Canada's Criminal Code that alleged meth makers be
considered guilty until proven innocent.

That flies in the face of basic democratic rights and wouldn't have a
hope in hell of surviving a constitutional court challenge.

But I suppose it's not really much of a worry seeing as reports like
this, good or bad, tend to be thrown on a shelf to collect dust.